


we don't need nobody, cause we got each other

by nighttimemytime (gonegirled)



Category: Harper's Island
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-23 21:14:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/626584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gonegirled/pseuds/nighttimemytime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They will pretend, at first, that they see each other: a posh wallflower of a man, a vapid flirt of a woman, an easy mark. </p>
<p>AU; Cal and Chloe as killers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we don't need nobody, cause we got each other

They find each other one day in the fog, someone else's blood underneath her nails and a scalpel in his pocket. They will pretend, at first, that they see each other: a posh wallflower of a man, a vapid flirt of a woman, an easy mark.

So, in the hazy period of after when normal people would be at their most vulnerable, bare skin and wrinkled sheets, her lips press against his jugular at the same time a smaller hand grabs his, fingers wrapping around the cold steel of the scalpel he's trying to hide from her sight. Their gazes meet and her smile is a knife, teeth bared and eyes alight with predatory curiosity. 

"What have we here?" she asks, and he realizes then that she is on top of him, that her body is thrumming for want of action. She lifts her head and he thinks, unconsciously, of a viper, rearing its head back to strike. Her tone is playful, a lighthearted, "Who are you?" as she twists his wrist just enough to make him hurt, just enough to show him who has won. 

"Cal," he breathes, pupils blown, and he surrenders the scalpel because maybe losing to her isn't so bad. That is when they begin to see each other, when the hostility aching her bones turns instead to familiarity warming her heart. She sits up, knees digging into his stomach, the light of the room catching her breasts and lighting her hair and making her into something so much more. 

"Chloe." It feels less like a game, more like a beginning.   
  
  


They fall into their own rhythm, ebbing and flowing, giving and taking. Chloe is easy, carefree, reckless. With Cal, she is more careful, because he's so good at this part of it: the planning, the waiting, the trapping. He covers his tracks. But when it comes to the killing, he loves to watch her, watch the ecstasy that flashes across her face like lightning. Watch her pause over someone with a knife, think deliriously that for one moment he sees her hand tremble, but then she looks at him and grins, _psych_ , she got him. She will always get him. 

But he will always be glad to be gotten. With Chloe, it is a wonderful way to lose. 

(They become more than just partners, more than just people who fuck, because she remembers how he hates Grey's Anatomy and she trashes it with him and he remembers how she loves the taste of cherries and goes some Sunday mornings in the rain to find a pastry whose name he can't pronounce to surprise her with. They become more than that so quickly and it's like being cut open, but they make silent vows not to allow themselves to be made weak. 

As if they had ever anything to fear. They make each other better, sharper. They make each other stop in the middle of work or shopping or anything to pause and think, reflect on how they never thought that people like them could feel like this.)   
  
  


"What about Beth?" he asks her in the silence of their hotel room, wondering if she is still angry from before. She had begged him to go to Trish's wedding, it was just one week, _please, I love you, come on Cal._ She had neglected to mention that they'd have to be careful, too careful, and now it's getting to her, she has that glint in her eyes like she's going to do something unpredictable. They can keep up facades for a long time, but there is no way for them to let the edge off. 

"I like Beth," she murmurs in reply, sounding pouty. Cal thinks for another moment, tries to come up with someone inconsequential. There are far too many people in this party, not many would notice if one happened to go missing. If they were careful enough. "Sully," he suggests, and knows he shouldn't. 

"Are you still upset about him leaving you up to hang?" Chloe giggles, turning toward him. "Or are you upset because he wants me?" He doesn't need to answer; he just swallows, blinks, averts his gaze. She sighs with what little resignation is possible from her. "We can get him back. But in another way." 

"Abby," he presses, and she kisses his forehead. It is strange, to see her being the careful one. 

"Goodnight, Cal."   
  
  


"Who else do you think will die?" she asks him, fearlessly, when they allowed a moment alone, when they are afforded a reprieve from all of that goddamn whiny nonsense tension. Mr. Wellington is dead and there is a killer that is not one of them, yes, they knew that, they suspected it from the moment Lucy went missing ("God, who the fuck just leaves from one of their best friend's weddings and texts their apology?" Chloe had called it not a few days later. "Like, Lucy is kind of a bitch, but no one is that much of a bitch."). 

"Not us," Cal replies, framing her face with his hands, looking into those eyes. Sometimes, he cannot tell what she's thinking; she scares him, still, in those moments when she's in front of everyone else and trying to figure out the killer and he's afraid she'll say something wrong. But that's just her part, that's all part of the game, and besides, she would never hurt them like that. "Anyone but us." 

"I know that." She steps out of his reach and folds her arms over her chest, glancing over into the lobby, at everyone so worried and nervous and vulnerable. Her voice doesn't change, but it leaves him with chills running down his spine. "We're going to win." This isn't a game, he wants to tell her, but it doesn't matter. They'll win anyways.   
  
  


Despite growing accustomed to being alone, she hates how she feels without Cal around. Like she's missing a limb. Like her guard is down. It isn't hard to play the concerned girlfriend ( _fiancée_ , now, she reminds herself, looking at the ring on her finger, something he'd planned but didn't execute properly enough for his tastes, but the unspoken promise of later, they'll do this properly later, keeps her afloat), but she doesn't like playing weak. She does it, though. She has always done it. Made herself easy prey. A pretty flower to be plucked, without thought. 

The most beautiful things can often be the most dangerous.   
  
  


The door cracks open and it's him, it's John Wakefield, and she thinks, _Of course, it could never have been anyone else._

They'll be playing against one of the greatest. She starts to scream, but she isn't afraid. (Except she is, some small part of her is, because Cal is gone and she had no idea what the fuck happened out there. Because she is alone and she had forgotten how it was, to fight without him by her side. Because, for one ridiculous moment when blood is being shed in front of her, she wonders if she has become weak. 

She has to find him.)   
  
  


No one sees him. Not even Chloe. Just a hand around her mouth and she's gone; the church is made emptier, and for a second, she worries that she has lost.   
  
  


He forgets the ache of his shoulder, forgets everything but Chloe and the hole in the world, the empty space right beside him. He plays scared, but inside, he has become exact. He is going to kill John Wakefield. The darkness of the tunnel swallows him up, spits him out into the wilderness and the air in his lungs is burning after he screams her name.   
  
  


He is taunting her and she has no choice but to keep playing, clawing at the cage she's in, sobbing and pleading with him. She thinks, _Cal will come,_ like it's a certain fact, like gravity. Cal will come. He is just taking too long. Wakefield looms over her, face deathly serious, and then they hear him scream. He asks her, "Is your fiancé willing to die for you?" Something inside her snaps, a hot lash of anger in her belly, and her mask slips. 

"He's willing to kill," she says, and he smiles, mistaking it for a threat when it was nothing short of a promise.   
  
  


They find each other again in the darkness, rust beneath her nails and a shotgun in his hand. They will pretend, at first, to be what everyone else sees: a posh wallflower of a man, a vapid flirt of a girl, each stupidly, dangerously in love with the other. _Easy marks._   
  
  


Wakefield is not afraid of the forest as most people are; he's known it, made it his home. He knows these paths, knows the trees, knows the river. Harper's Island has not rejected him yet. He walks silently, stealthily, ghosting between the trails, looking for the woman. He knows she got out, her fiancé got her out; their screaming has stopped. But he can't find her anywhere, can't find the two of them lost and stumbling, afraid and incompetent. 

Which is why it gives him pause when she is placed before him, when she is just suddenly there. Alone. He looks around carefully, listens for the sound of heavy breathing, of leaves rustling underneath anxious feet too quick to move. Nothing, just her. Chloe turns to him and her face does not twist in anguish. It remains calm, but her eyes gleam. She meets his gaze without hesitation. Something makes him uneasy. 

Suddenly behind him, with a quietness to rival his own, Cal. The pumping of a shotgun, the pressure of its barrel against the back of his skull. Chloe smiles then, slow and sweet, eyes alight with triumph. 

"You can't have me," she says, and Cal pulls the trigger.


End file.
